Glennon and his mother and sister are spending the summer with his uncle, one of the lighthouse keepers on Isle Philippeaux, a tiny, isolated island in the middle of Lake Superior, while his father works abroad. Days before they're set to return home, a ship wrecks ashore, and the few survivors are acting oddly, talking about a mysterious event called The Waning. Glennon doesn't know what The Waning is, but he knows his family must escape before it comes. Brandt's atmospheric prose makes Isle Philippeaux feel alive terally: "The windows of the Third Keeper's home at Graving Lighthouse quivered, restless in their frames as the wind outside crept against their edges and tried to sneak in." The book's slow, creeping pace matches the slow, creeping dread that fills both Glennon and the reader as the island's secrets unravel. A sense of unease and wrongness permeates every page of this story where the inhabitants of the island are all haunted by something, figuratively and literally. Hand this to fans of atmospheric horror tinged with hope and healing.

Glennon discovers the sinister reason why the Lake Superior island he's visiting isn't found on any map.Writing in a distinctly metaphorical vein, Brandt tells a tale that is chilling on more than one level. Accepting an invitation she claims she received, 13-year-old Glennon McCue's mother has brought him and his emotionally fragile sister, Leeunah, to stay with their Uncle Job, a lighthouse keeper, on remote Isle Philippeaux while their father is away for a fall semester fellowship. Readers will quickly cotton to the fact that all is not right-either on the island or in the McCue family-as, along with fogs, oddly localized gales, feelings of formless dread, frequent encounters with staring rats, and like atmospheric portents, both Glennon and Lee exhibit clear signs of PTSD. Brandt piles on further clues to what's going on: On the one hand, there are sightings of gruesomely disfigured specters and the ominous news that the island is completely cut off from the mainland, and on the other, there are Glennon's memories of years of his mercurial father's patronizing put-downs and sudden rages. In the wildly stormy climax, Glennon confronts multiple terrors as, to prevent him escaping with his family, the malign island attempts to sabotage his newfound determination through psychological means. The main cast defaults to White.Zombie rats and ghastly ghosts galore-but the haunting comes from more than the spectral cast. (map, author's note) (Paranormal. 10-13)